Performer: Bengt Gomér

Richard Farnes returns to Opera North to conduct and Sam Brown directs a concert staging of Wagner's final opera, Parsifal. 

Andrew Staples creates an austere, monochrome semi-staging that's strangely appropriate to the times; Peter Mattei and John Lundgren lead an excellent cast.

Nina Stemme returns to Hobart and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra under Marko Letonja, with an all-Wagner concert, ably assisted by Swedish bassJohn Lundgren 

A semi-staged performance of the two early 20th-century modernist works at the New York Philharmonic featured excellent soloists, great production and an inspired orchestra led by Jaap van Zweden.